Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed met with Chen Deming, the visiting Commerce Minister of China, in Malé on August 22.

Chen firstly extended Chinese President Hu’s greetings to Nasheed and noted that China would give effect to in earnest the consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries in May this year when President Nasheed visited China, and actively boost China-Maldives trade and economic cooperation.

Chen said, China-Maldives trade and economic cooperation not only consolidated the friendly relations of the two countries but also brought substantial benefits for the two peoples. In the first half of 2010, China-Maldives trade was up by 183% year on year, a good momentum in development. China will grant zero-tariff to 4,721 Tariff No. to Maldives exports starting from 2011 to promote Maldives export to China and the balanced development of bilateral trade. Last year, the number of Chinese tourists to Maldives reached 60,000, which made China the largest tourist source for Maldives in Asia. Obviously, the tourism cooperation of the two countries has broad prospect.

Besides, Chen stated that China fully understood Maldives particular concerns on climate change and would like to enhance cooperation with Maldives for jointly maintaining common interests of developing countries. China will continue boosting the mutual cooperation in energy-saving and environmental protection. China’s financial aid will give priority to housing construction, environmental protection and cyclic economy concerned by Maldives. Additionally, China will support Maldives to enhance its efforts in coping with climate change and encourage China’s powerful enterprises to invest and cooperate in new energy like solar energy and wind energy in Maldives.

Nasheed asked Chen to extend his regards to Chinese President Hu. Nasheed said, given the friendly Maldives-China relations, frequent high-level visits and increasing Chinese tourists, all walks of life hoped further enhance trade and economic cooperation with China. Maldives admired China’s contributions to coping with global climate change, and hoped take joint efforts with China to boost the Climate Change Conference in Cancun to reach achievements. While developing low-carbon economy, Maldives welcomes Chinese enterprises to invest in renewable energy and cyclic economy. Besides, Nasheed expressed his appreciations for China’s help in its economic and social development and added that newly completed museum, aided by China, was very popular in Maldives.

On the same day, Minister Chen held talks with Maldives Minister of Economic Development Mahmood Razee, Minister of Housing, Transport, and Environment Mohamed Aslam, State Minister for Finance Ahmed Assad, and State Minister for Foreign Affairs Ahmed Naseem, and discussed in detail matters relating to enhancing cooperation in various sectors. After the talks, Chen signed the MOU on Enhancing Economic and Technical Cooperation in Energy-saving and Environmental Protection by the Ministry of Commerce of P.R.C and the Ministry of Housing, Transport, and Environment of the Republic of Maldives with Mohamed Aslam and the Framework Agreement on China’s Preferential Loans to the Republic of Maldives with Ahmed Assad respectively.

According to the MOU, the two sides will boost the trade, investment, economic and technical cooperation among Maldives and Chinese enterprises in the fields of the environment-friendly housing construction, waste treatment and sustainable use, energy and resource conservation as well as renewable energy, promote exchanges of talent and information in energy-saving and environmental protection, encourage industrial associations and enterprises of the two countries to hold dialogues and seminars in relevant fields, and encourage relevant people of Maldives to participate in training courses sponsored by China.